Los Angeles, CA

In a new article out by the L.A. Times, California leads the country for the most juveniles serving life sentences in prison. The only state to beat us for this dubious honor is Pennsylvania, and the United States is by far the leader of the entire world when it comes to juveniles locked up for life, with 2,387 lifers serving. 227 of those are our kids. Actually, the United States and Israel, the country that came in at #2 with seven juvenile lifers imprisoned, are the only two countries in the world to sentence underage criminals to life sentences.

Even more unfortunate for California, a disproportionately large number of our young life sentence servers are minorities — young black men, if you were curious. According to the L.A. Times, black men are twenty times more likely to receive a life sentence than criminals of other colors. Even more startling, the report found that over 50% of these young people serving life sentences were given this harsh sentence for a first time offense.

In response to this, Senator Leland Yee from San Francisco is trying to push through a new law that would allow those juveniles given life sentences a chance to apply for parole after 25 years, arguing that these people should not be given up on, and still have the potential for rehabilitation and reintegration into society. Still, serving 25 years before even getting a chance at parole sounds like an eon. Should underage criminals ever be sentenced to life without parole?

You can read the full article here, if you’re interested.